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- Allen Koepke, born in Chicano, Illinois in 1939, has been
a music educator in Iowa since 1960. He received his Bachelor
of Arts from Luther College in 1960 and his Master of Arts from
the University of Northern Iowa in 1967. He is presently Director
of Choral Music at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in Cedar Rapids,
Iowa and is Professor Emeritus from Kirkwood Community College
(Cedar Rapids) where he taught for sixteen years. Prior to that
he was a grade school, junior high and high school choir director
for twenty years.
- In 1996, he was awarded the 'Iowa Professor of the Year"
by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and
Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Also in 1996
he was honored as "Innovator of the Year" by Kirkwood
Community
College and the national organization "league For Innovation"
for his work in computerized classroom instruction. In 1995,
he was inducted into the Jefferson High School "Hall of
Fame" and in 1994 was awarded the coveted "Honorary
Student" by the Kirkwood student body and Executive Council.
At the 1997 Iowa Choral Directors Association Summer Symposium,
he was awarded the distinguished Robert M. McCowen Memorial Award
." for outstanding contribution to choral music in Iowa"
- Koepke has conducted over 30 national U.S.A. tours and three
international tours including Mexico, Scotland, England, Austria,
Switzerland and Denmark. His choirs have won numerous awards
over the past 40 years including the "Silver Rose"
trophy at the Copenhagen "People to People" Youth festival
and the "Superior" award at a jazz festival in Mexico
City. For 12 consecutive years, one of his collegiate ensembles
won the "Outstanding Group" award at a festival at
Western Michigan University and the University of Northern Colorado.
In 2001, his church choir was invited to, and participated in,
the International Church Choir festival in Bern, Switzerland.
- Koepke has had many of his compositions performed at national
music conventions, as well as national radio and television in
Europe, Asia, Canada, and the United States. His "Missa
Brevis" was performed in Carnegie Hall in 1995 and at the
national convention of the American Choral Directors Association
in San Diego. It has been performed by countless orchestras/choirs
nationally and the Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestra and Chorale
in 1998. His "A Vision, A Dream" was written for the
Iowa Sesquicentennial and "In Praise of Music" was
the "finale" written in celebration of Iowa's 50th
All-State Music Festival (in 1996). His "Te Deum" was
performed in Dallas, Texas in 2000 and by the Cedar Rapids Symphony
Orchestra and Cedar Rapids Concert Chorale. Koepke was the Composer-In-Residence
for the Cedar Rapids Symphony for two years and presently has
over 60 published works found in seven publishing houses. He
presently spends his "free" time as a composer, adjudicator,
clinician, teacher, tour director, and church choir director.
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